Catalogue Entry

No. 123: "A colored man and woman, with two small children, are mounted on a large horse, which is trotting along a road at its utmost speed in the early dawn. The man, holding in front of him a child of three or four years of age, urges the animal to action, and the mother, clasping her husband around the waist, and holding to her bosom an infant, looks behind her anxiously to see if they are pursued. Through a rift in the clouds on the left of the horse is seen a narrow streak of light. Upon the back of this picture is inscribed the following: 'A veritable incident in the Civil War, seen by myself at Centerville on the morning of McClellan’s advance to Manassas, March 2 [sic], 1862. Eastman Johnson.'”
"Signed at the lower right, E. Johnson.
Height, 22 inches; length, 26 inches."
[Annotation: “105.00 / Louis Ettlinger / Called in letter 'The Contraband.'”]

Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)

[The artist's estate sale, American Art Association, New York, February 26–27, 1907, no. 123 (as A Ride for Liberty—The Fugitive Slaves—1862)]

Louis Ettlinger, February 27, 1907 (by purchase)

Flora Ettlinger (Mrs. Giles) Whiting, his daughter

Museum of the City of New York, New York (by bequest)

Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York, 1972

Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, November 12, 1985

Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the Late Eastman Johnson, N.A. New York: American Art Association, February 1907. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 123, as A Ride for Liberty—The Fugitive Slaves, March 2, 1862.

"Eastman Johnson Sale." American Art News 5, no. 20 (March 2, 1907).

Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 13, addendum “Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Fugitive Slaves].